Here's How One Entrepreneur And Writer Creates His Most Viral Articles

Writing for the likes of Forbes, Inc. Magazine and the Huffington Post is a privilege handed to very few writers. It takes consistent effort to build a body of work that proves you have a unique voice and can sustain a stronger readership.

Of the many pathsBrian D. Evans could have chosen to build his body of work and eventually write for prestigious publications like these, he picked one that suited his entrepreneurial leanings and launched Influencive late in 2015. In just two years, his blog has attracted an army of contributors and millions of monthly readers.

Evans may be famous for his marketing prowess, but writing is a relatively new addition to his skillset. As such, he believes his success in the online content world can be replicated by writers who have the right mindset and are willing to put in the work to create content that adds something worthwhile to the conversation.

First, Evans says writers should not look at failure as a rite of passage. There will be rejection on the way to publication, but you shouldn’t set an obstacle in your path that doesn’t need to be there. Just because other writers got 100 rejection letters or were told “no” for three years doesn’t mean you’ll follow the same path.

Once you’ve placed failure in the proper context, the simplest way to create good content is to answer questions people commonly ask you. Whatever your area of expertise, be it social media or Rubik’s cubes, take the questions you get asked most often and write posts that answer those questions. This is a formula Evans still uses that’s helped him create some of his most popular articles.

“I was asked a number of times: how do I get to 100,000 followers on Facebook in 30 days” he said. “I wrote an article explaining how and it took off. This works best when you have a body of work, but if you don’t have a platform yet, you can write on sites like Medium, LinkedIn, Facebook, or even Instagram. Andy Frisella and Gary Vaynerchuk are doing that – posting long captions on Instagram photos that are like blog posts.”

As you see which posts perform well, you can pitch those ideas to other platforms and argue that the content would perform even better in front of a larger audience.

Overcoming the challenges to creating online content

One obstacle that keeps people from creating a body of work is a need for perfection.

“Writing articles online is not like writing a book,” Evans advised. “You’re not spending two years editing this perfectly polished product. It’s less polished, and in terms of your approach, it’s like throwing darts. People ask you a question and you write about it. There will be missteps, articles you put out that fail to gain any traction.”

What Evans eventually realized is how important headlines are to your success. As he argues, if nobody clicks on your content, the quality is irrelevant. The way you frame your content, then is almost as important as what you write.

One tool Evans recommends isCoSchedule Headline Analyzer. Simply copy and paste your headline and you’ll get a score from 0-100. If you headline doesn’t score well, you’ll get recommendations for improving it with more emotional or powerful words.

Keep it short and sweet at first

Word count is also important to how you present your article. Attention spans aren’t what they used to be, which is why Evans suggests keeping your posts under 800 words. If you run longer than that, you need to be a serious authority and produce work that is more polished than what’s typically passed around social media.

“If you’ve built an audience that wants to read 5,000-word white papers about your topic of expertise, go for it,” Evans said. “But if you want to reach people in the entrepreneurial or motivational spaces, your work should be short and sweet because there are thousands of sites and articles competing for their attention.

Articles that are an appropriate length should also be formatted for rapid consumption, which means you shouldn’t have giant blocks of text on the page. Include subheads, photos, and keywords that are bolded or underlined. The goal is to keep readers moving down the page from one point to another, so you shouldn’t impede their progress.

Longer content can come after you’ve built a loyal audience that is willing to read more in-depth pieces. Until then, keep it short and sweet to attract and retain readers.

Reaching a tipping point

If you’re talented and dedicated, it’s likely you’ll eventually write something that resonates with enough people to create a tipping point in your career. For Evans, that was a piece he wrote on Influencive called “Creating the Inevitability of Success Mindset” that was read close to 800,000 times in 30 days.

“My basic idea with that piece was simple and strong, which is why I think it connected with so many people,” Evans recalled. “If we remove the conditional statements we place on our lives – ‘I’m going to try to do this’ – and replace them with affirmative statements – ‘I’m going to do this’ – our self-belief goes way up. That simple shift was a huge turning point in my life. By believing in myself, I made my success inevitable.”

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